Help configuring network

[whoathere]

I have a quick question about what I need to do in order to have my system set up properly.

First, I have an Airport extreme that is probably 2-3 years old. I have a 1TB USB drive used for time machine for an iMac and a MBP. I also have a 2 TB buffalo NAS attached to the AE. All of these items are in my office and my house does NOT have wiring for networking.

In my media room I have my Xbox, bluray, ATV2, directv, etc. I would like to hook these up via Ethernet. Mainly because the directv has to be hooked up via Ethernet (long story). So I figured if I have to do one, why not do them all.

Could I take a new airport express and connect it to my current wifi and use the Ethernet port to connect the directv, or any device for that matter, to the wifi? Or would it make more sense to get a TC to replace my Extreme and use the Extreme in the place of the express in the example? I'm more curious if it would work, more than what equipment to use, but any recommendations would be appreciated.

 

[Weaselboy]

Yes that will work. What you are doing is called "extending the network" and is covered by Apple http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4259.

The Express would work at the TV end and you could just add a cheap switch to split the ethernet cable to as many devices as you have. Or an Extreme at the TV end would give you built in ethernet expansion. Less clutter.

If you were thinking you could use or would like a Time Capsule anyway, maybe put the Time Capsule as the main and then the old Extreme at the TV end of things. That would work too.

 

[robgendreau]

The Express is kinda expensive for that, especially since you'd need to buy an ethernet switch as well (they don't cost that much). But you might be able to find a router that could pass the wifi to those boxes via ethernet.

But if you can you should try to get ethernet to that media room. You are going to severely tax your connection as it is, and ethernet might work more efficiently. Downloading something from DTV on demand and trying to online game with the Xbox is a lot of traffic. Of course the bottleneck might be the broadband connection anyway, but you didn't say what else is there. For example, hardwiring all the media stuff to broadband and having the only wifi clients on the computer/mobile end might be more efficient, since transferring media files is where the big pipes are needed.